Landmark Case For Stoners

A fairly recent California Appellate Court decision should be hailed as a landmark case for pot smokers. In People v. Hua, (158 Cal. App. 4th 1027) a court ruled that law enforcement must have a warrant to enter a private residence when the only evidence of a crime being committed is for simple possession of marijuana.

In Hua, two police officers walked up to an apartment in response to a complaint of a noise violation and saw, through a window, four college kids sitting around a table passing around a couple of blunts. The police officers knocked on the door and asked to come in. The kids said no but the officers entered anyway. In the apartment, the police found 46 marijuana plants. The young man who lived at the apartment, Hua, was arrested and charged with cultivation of marijuana.

A little legal background info at this point: As you may know, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, meaning police must have a warrant to enter any private area. Any evidence obtained from an illegal police search is suppressed, and may not be used against a defendant in court. However, there are several exceptions to the warrant requirement. For example, if the police reasonably believe that evidence will be destroyed if they don’t enter immediately, they may legally do so.

And that was the excuse the officer in Hua used; if he had not entered immediately (and without a warrant), the evidence of pot would have been destroyed. However, possession of less than 28.5 grams of marijuana is at most a misdemeanor (and often charged as merely an infraction), and a non-jailable offense. The Appellate Court cited the 1984 Supreme Court Case Wisconsin v. Welsh (466 U.S. 740), which stated that “entry into a home to preserve evidence from imminent destruction is limited to evidence of crimes that are not minor.” The court in Hua reasoned that possession of marijuana was exactly the sort of minor crime described in Welsh.

The officers in Hua, when looking through the window, saw evidence of only the crime of possession of less than 28.5 grams of weed (they did not notice the dozens of marijuana plants when they first peeked in). The court determined that the minor seriousness of the crime was outweighed by the protection given to citizens by the Fourth Amendment “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The entry by the officers was illegal, and thus all evidence seized from the illegal search was thrown out. Despite being found with 46 pot plants, Hua got off scot-free.

What does this mean? Well, it basically means you can smoke weed on your balcony while smiling down at a cop and he can’t do a thing, short of leaving to find a judge to sign a warrant. This case is truly a landmark victory for pot smokers everywhere.

However, that doesn’t mean that smoking pot in plain view of an officer is a good idea; always use common sense! Just because a warrantless entry by law enforcement is illegal doesn’t mean it won’t be done. And while you may have law as determined by the Hua court on your side, it’s definitely not worth going through the legal process to be proclaimed innocent. So if you choose to smoke marijuana, be sure to do so carefully. And if you are ever arrested for any sort of drug related crime, you should contact the Law Offices of Scott R. Ball today.